remember them, and know that this means their ruin," she
said--obviously one of the phrases she had more than once
repeated to herself in the course of the last few days.

She had called him "Stiva," and he glanced at her with gratitude,
and moved to take her hand, but she drew back from him with
aversion.

"I think of the children, and for that reason I would do anything
in the world to save them, but I don't myself know how to save
them. By taking them away from their father, or by leaving them
with a vicious father--yes, a vicious father.... Tell me, after
what...has happened, can we live together? Is that possible?
Tell me, eh, is it possible?" she repeated, raising her voice,
"after my husband, the father of my children, enters into a
love affair with his own children's governess?"

"But what could I do? what could I do?" he kept saying in a
pitiful voice, not knowing what he was saying, as his head sank
lower and lower.

"You are loathsome to me, repulsive!" she shrieked, getting more
and more heated. "Your tears mean nothing! You have never loved
me; you have neither heart nor honorable feeling! You are
hateful to me, disgusting, a stranger--yes, a complete
stranger!" With pain and wrath she uttered the word so terrible
to herself--_stranger_.

He looked at her, and the fury expressed in her face alarmed and
amazed him. He did not understand how his pity for her